It was predicted to be a pleasant morning that Wednesday, April Fool's day in
the Spring of 1885, when an eight line poem was printed upside down on the
front page of the Lynchburg Virginian. The couplets were prefaced with a
curious warning:

DON'T READ THIS, --Ladies,
skip this paragraph. It is really unfit for publication. It got in
by mistake, and we asked the printer to destroy it or set it wrong side up:

(The
following lines were printed upside down)

If
there's anything worries a woman,
It's something she ought not not to know; (not not?)
But you bet she'll find it out anyhow,
If she gets the least kind of a show.
Now, we'll wager ten cents to a farthing,
This poem she's already read--
We knew she would get at it somehow,
If she had to stand on her head.

A farthing was 1/4 of a cent, so the bet was
40 to 1 that the April 1 ditty would be read by the lady referenced
above. Other newspapers had the wager as ten cents to a penny and a
dollar to a cent, or 100 to 1. The little poem had no title or author but
it was widely copied with minor changes to the words in newspapers across the
country--one of them attributed it to the Harvard Lampoon.

The repetition of "not" in the
second line was unique to the Lynchburg Virginian, and could have been a
printer's error, possibly from setting the type in the block upside down.
If the "mistake" was deliberate it may have been inserted as a pun,
as in knot or naught, or naughty. Aught historically has represented
zero, as has Naught, Nought, and Nil and the number zero "0" is Zero
in French, Nihil in Latin, or KuKlos in Greek.

A companion piece with more casual couplets
accompanied the upside down piece of work on the front page.

The second little poem depicted a
noisy wife instead of a nosy wife.Evidently the editor or his minions had an axe to grind with some
members of the fairer sexthat

morning.

The second ditty read as follows:

Cheerier and cheerier grow the days,
And the storms are fewer and fewer.
Warmer and warmer grow the sun's glad rays,
And the skies grow bluer and bluer;
And the wife with only a shawl to her back
Has ceased her hullabaloo,
And cries no more for a sealskin sacque
And a fur-lined circular, too.

A circular was a mitten-like article of
clothing used to cover both hands from the winter chill. Could it be said
that it formed the shape of a zero? A seal-skin sacque would have been a
ladies overcoat of seal's fur, and a very warm and expensive coat at
that.

Rounding off the morning newspaper's
presentations of April Foolery was a third article about an entirely
different subject entitled:

The Pompey Stone.

The famous Pompey stone, now in the state
museum at Albany, is the most noted of a very limited class of relics. It
is a bowlder about fourteen inches long and twelve wide, bearing on its face an
unmistakable figure and inscription. It was discovered at Watervale, in
the township of Pompey,not far from Manlius, Onondaga county, about sixty-five
years ago. (That would have been
about 1820)
Historians and scientists have speculated on its origin without positive
results, and it still remains as perplexing an enigma as when first brought to
notice.

The figure in the center of the stone
represents a serpent twining about the trunk of a tree. At the left is
plainly engraved Leo De -----VI 1520.On the right of the serpent is a capital L with several inferior marks,
doubtless meant for small letters, beneath which are two peculiar characters
that look very much like Indian totems.This
stone is supposed to furnish the earliest known evidence of the presence of
Europeans on the soil of New York state, and to have been designed for a grave
monument for some unknown Spanish adventurer who, with his comprades had
penetrated the wilderness in search of gold during the early part of the
sixteenth century. --Rochester Post- Express.

A skeptic could speculate that Leo meant lion, and De-VI + L just might refer
to the name of, well, perhaps those letters referred to the name of that
sneaky old "lyon" serpent entwined around a tree trunk?

The Pompey stone was eventually proven to be a hoax by W. M. Beauchamp in 1894
and in response to the publication of his investigations, two family friends,
John and William Sweet claimed that it had been carved in a blacksmith's shop
by Cyrus Avery and William Willard as a prank some 65 years
earlier. Neither perpetrator was alive to protest
the Sweets' version of events. 520

But back in Lynchburg, by that morning of April 1, 1885, probably 100 and
perhaps as many as 1000 or more Beale Papers pamphlets had already been
printed. The title page of the pamphlet had already been sent to
Washington, DC where it had secured a copyright for its "agent" James
Beverly Ward, a respected local resident. That page had an unusual
mistake, the letters "Th" were obviously missing from "The"
in its title, The Beale Papers.
It also had a second minor glitch, the date 1885 on the bottom of the page was
slightly off center to the right as if originally the typesetter had
planned to place a month in front of the year. The missing letters and
the misalignment were probably the result of a hasty set-up during the first
printing. 20-8

It is reasonable to speculate that by April 1 that the plates were also typeset
for the printing of the April 10 "for sale" announcement in the
Lynchburg Virginian. The anticipation of huge sales and corresponding
profits was undoubtedly intense. All was in place for the
incredible treasure hunt to begin on Friday, the tenth of April, shortly
after the morning papers were delivered to Lynchburg's finest citizens.

But, as Robert Burns noted in his 1786 poem, To a Mouse, "the best laid
schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley," or in modern nomenclature, the
booklet bombed. Only a few of the Virginian's readers succumbed to the
allure of the advertisement's alleged treasure and purchased the expensive
pamphlet with the hopes that a few hours of "ciphering" would
"speedily" unravel Thomas Beale's last letter and reveal the hidden
vault that had protected tons of gold and silver since 1822.

Unfortunately for James Beverly Ward and the printer (who had probably printed
the booklets at least partially on credit) very few of the expensive pamphlets
sold quickly or even over the next several months. The price was lowered
from 50 cents (5 times the price of the then popular dime novels) to 25 cents
and eventually to10 cents. Local folks simply weren't "buying"
the treasure story and fifteen months later there were still copies to be sold
at the ten cent price. Without a budget to advertise to a wider audience,
the pamphlets probably sat on a dusty shelf formonths or even years until the balance of the little green booklets were
probably burned to warm the print shop one winter, or sold as a box lot in some
local auction.The burning scenario is
more likely since so few of the original booklets have been discovered.

The readers who had spent their hard earned cash for the booklet on that
Friday, April 10, 1885 apparently never cracked the ciphers and dug up the
treasure. That fact has not deterred a few determined souls from studying
the ciphers and digging holes in the farmlands near the former location of Buford's
Tavern not too far from present day Montvale, Virginia.

The unnamed author of the Beale Papers warned
all of its readers to careful not to catch the gold fever that could be
inflamed by its pages.Although there
have been numerous supects in the search for the anonymous author, no one has
been positively identified as the writer of the booklet.Because he has been unnamed for so long, his
pen name or nom de plume will hereafter
be referred to as Mr. McCypher in the following pages.

The
Sad Warnings of the Anonymous Author,
Mr. McCypher

The following admonitions should be read carefully and
seriously obeyed.Ignoring the anonymous
author’s instructions will on occasion lead an unwary reader into a labyrinth
of repetitious error which has as its onlyreward an interesting “experience.”

When the Beale Papers were originally printed in Lynchburg,
Virginia sometime prior to April 10, 1885 the author of the pamphlet included
several strenuous warnings.Selected
words from those warnigns have occasionally beenemphasized with bold print to highlight the
nature of his reassembled warnings. (3873 letters, 847 words)

Themysterious Mr.
McCypher terminated hisobligations to
Mr. Morris and his own love-hate affair with the ciphers by offering to
sellthe mystery to the public for 50
cents in the form of a 23 page pamphlet.This price was offered at a time when dime novels of 100 pages or more
were sellingfor ten cents.The warnings below detailed the author's
seemingly genuine concerns that otherswould succumb to the allures of the Beale mystery and that its charms
would seduce numerous would-becryptographers and treasure hunters intowastingyears of valuable time
and effort on fruitless searches for thekey text.You will discover that
unfortunately Mr. McCypher's worst fears were not unfounded.

The Saga of the Beale Treasure began with a meeting in
1862.

“...Invitingme to his room, with no one to interrupt us,
he (Robert Morriss) gave me an outline of the matter, which soon enlisted my
interest and created an intense longing to learn more.”

That feeling has been aroused many times in the hearts of
numerous subsequent individuals, and almost all of them would ultimately agree
with the author as he tells the rest of his story.

The meeting resulted in the following despairing
warnings:

Until the writer
lost all hope of ultimatesuccess, he
toiled faithfully at his work; unlike any other pursuit with practical and
natural results, a charm attended it, independent of the ultimate
benefit he expected,and the possibility
of success lent an interest and excitement to the work not to be resisted.It would be difficult to portray the delight
he experienced when accident revealed to him the explanation of the
paper marked "TWO."Unmeaning,
as this had hitherto been, it was now fully explained, and no difficulty was apprehended
in mastering the others; but this accident, affording so much pleasure
at the time, was a most unfortunate one for him, as it induced him to
neglect family, friends, and all legitimatepursuits for what has proved, so far, the veriest illusion.He is therefore, compelled, however
unwillingly, to relinquish to others the elucidation of the Beale
papers, not doubting that of the many who will give the subject attention, some
one, through fortune or accident, will speedily solve their
mystery and secure the prize which has eluded him.”

“It can be
readily imagined that this course was not determined upon all at once;
regardless of the entreaties of his family and the persistent advice of his
friend, who were formerly as sanguine as himself, he stubbornly continued his
investigations, untilabsolute want staredhim in the face and forced him to yield
to their persuasions.Havingnowlostallhope of benefit from this source himself, he
is not unwilling that others may receive it,andonly hopes that the prize may
fall to some poor, but honest man, who will use his discovery not solely for
the promotion of his own enjoyment, but for the welfare of others.“

“It is now more
than twentyyearssince these papers came into my hands, and, with the exception of one of
them, they are still as incomprehensible as ever.Much time was devoted to this one, and those
who engage in the matter will be saved what has been consumed upon it by
myself.Before giving the papers to the
public, I would say a word to those who may take an interest in them and give
them a little advice, acquired by bitter experience.It is to
devote only such time as can be spared from your legitimate business to the
task, and if you can spare no time,let the matter alone.”

“Should you
disregardmy advice, do not hold me
responsible that thepovertyyou have courted is more easily found than the accomplishment ofyour wishes,and I would avoid the sight of another reduced to my condition.Nor is it necessary to devote the time that
I did to this matter, as accident alone, without the promised key,
will ever develop the mystery.If
revealed by accident, a few hours
devoted to the subject may accomplish results which were denied to years
of patienttoil.”

“Again, never,as I have
done,sacrifice your own and your
family'sinterests to what may prove an
illusion; but, as I have already said, when your day's work is done, and
youare comfortably seated by your good fire,
a short timedevoted to the subject can injure no
one, and may bring its reward.By
pursuing this policy, your interests will not suffer, your family will be cared
for, and your thoughts will not be absorbed to the exclusion of other important
affairs.”

“Now, as I have
already said, I am forced by circumstances to devote my time to other pursuits,
and to abandon hopes which were destined never to be realized. In consequence
of the time lost in the aboveinvestigation, I have beenreduced from comparative affluence to absolute penury, entailingsuffering upon those it wasmyduty to protect, and this, too, in spite of their remonstrances.My eyes were at last opened to their conditions,
and I resolved to sever at once,
and forever, all connection with the affair, and retrieve, if
possible, my errors.”

“To do this, as
the best means of placing temptation beyond my reach, I determined to make
public the whole matter, and shift from my shoulders my responsibility to Mr.
Morriss..I anticipate for these papers
a large circulation, and, to avoid the multitude of letters with which I should
be assailed from all sections of the Union, propounding all sorts of
questions, and requiring answers which, if attended to, would absorb my
entire time, and only change the character of my work, I have decided upon
withdrawing my name from the publication, after assuring all interested that I
have given all that I know of the matter, and that I cannotadd one word to the statements herein
contained.”

“With this final
admonition, I submit to my readers the papers upon which this narrative is
founded.Should any of my readers be
more fortunate than myself in discovering its place of concealment, I shall not
only rejoice with them, but feel that I have at least accomplished something in
contributing to the happiness of others.”

The above words seem to express a sincere wish that others
would be careful to avoid the pain and disappointments that the author and his
family experienced because of the time wasted in a treasure quest.The dangers of finding an obsession instead
of a solution to the Beale mystery were
accurately and seriously described by Mr. McCypher.